


every ache reminds me of you

by makemelovely



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Past Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Training, simulated character death, simulations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 22:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21278846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makemelovely/pseuds/makemelovely
Summary: Adora swings the sword down, the blade glinting in the fading light. The sun sets behind them, and it makes Adora glow. The tip of the Sword of Protection rests underneath Catra’s chin, sharp enough to cut if Adora would press in.She doesn't.//or, Light Hope runs simulations





	every ache reminds me of you

Adora swings the sword down, the blade glinting in the fading light. The sun sets behind them, and it makes Adora glow. The tip of the Sword of Protection rests underneath Catra’s chin, sharp enough to cut if Adora would press in.

She doesn't.

She stands there, chest heaving as she draws in breaths. “Are you going to surrender?” Adora asks, voice rough.

Catra laughs at her, canines flashing in warning. Or maybe Adora’s just focusing on the sharpness of her claws and not the tender way she used to scrape hair out of Adora’s eyes. “Jeez, Adora, how many times are you going to ask me that? A hundred billion?” She yawns then, dramatically. “I’m not the kind of person who abandons those who need them.” Catra says slyly, but there’s a vicious set in her eyes, stiff across her face.

“Catra-” Adora starts to respond, but the girl twists out from underneath her blade. Catra sweeps her leg out, but Adora _ knows _ her. She fights dirty, and this isn't exactly a new move. Adora remembers many training sessions and the bruised back that always accompanied them. _ Do you have to do it so hard? _Adora would whine, and Catra would press her hand gently to Adora’s back and laugh.

Adora jumps up, carefully dropping down on one of Catra’s legs to trap her. “Why didn't you come with me?” Adora asks. She feels the ache of missing Catra acutely. That tenderness between the ribs, that swallowing fire ache that haunts her in the daylight and destroys her during the night.

Catra looks at her steadily, her eyes serious. “I didn't want to.” She tells her.

Adora sucks in a breath sharply, and she can feel herself receding into her regular body. She-Ra fades away until it’s just Adora clutching her sword in her hands. She can feel the tightness in her shoulders, the way her eyes burn with unshed tears.

“Simulation failed.” Catra tells her, but her voice echoes and turns into Light Hope’s. The world falls away until Adora is left standing alone, shame burning in her bloodstream.

“Target not eliminated.” Light Hope announces, and Adora hangs her head in her hands.

“I know!” Adora groans, and she lets tears slip down her cheeks beneath the safety of her hands.

Adora wonders what it would be like to talk to Catra again without needing to defeat her.

Adora wonders what it would be like to not want Catra.

* * *

Once, and only once, does Light Hope run a simulation where it is just Catra and Adora.

* * *

“I never wanted to leave you!” Adora shouts, and it’s raining so hard she can hardly see anything but the angry shine of Catra’s eyes. Adora squints, jerking back just in time to avoid a swipe of Catra’s claws, right where her nose had been moments before.

“But you did!” Catra snarls, advancing.

There's nothing soft about this fight. Tension fizzles between them, sharp and crackling.

A slash of claws down the length of Adora’s arm, bruises forming on Catra’s cheek. It is hard. It is biting. It is justice, revenge, penance. It is everything boiling inside of them, threatening to swallow them whole.

Adora tumbles backwards over an edge, and they're on a cliff, there's a raging sea beneath them, and Adora thinks, wildly, that Catra hates the sea. “Catra!” She gasps, screams, chokes out. Her fingers are wrapped tightly around Catra’s forearm. “Catra, please.” She begs.

Catra looks at her, smirking even as they get drenched in the rain. “Oops, Adora,” Catra says, prying at Adora’s fingers. “Looks like your fingers are slipping.” Her fingers wrapped around Adora’s wrist, hovering.

“Catra, no-” Adora starts to say, but Catra lets her go.

“Goodbye, Adora.” Catra calls after her as she plummets to the raging sea below.

She hits the water with an icy shock, and she gasps in a breath full of liquid. Before she can really panic, she’s on the floor with Light Hope’s voice speaking to her.

Her voice is soothing in Adora's ear, steady in its infiniteness. She latches onto it, breathing in and out, in and out. The world is no longer tilting, water draining out of her vision and leaving her body cold and hollow.

* * *

"When I left," Adora says, ever so carefully, her palm against Catra's tense back, her fingers spanning the space between her shoulder blades. "Did it hurt?"

"Yes." Catra answers. "No."

Adora twists, looking at the left side of Catra's face, the narrowness and harrowed slink of her cheekbone. "Which is it?" She asks.

"Both." Catra flexs her fingers, claws glinting. Adora looks at them, thinks of the red scratches blooming on her skin and shrinking away when She-Ra disappears and all that's left is Adora. "You were always in my way, but I loved you anyway."

Adora flinches, but Catra pushes on. "I wanted to beat you, I wanted to be better than you. I finally was. I am." Catra smiles, a ghost of a thing designed to haunt, to remind. She raises her hands, one tenderly cupping Adora's jaw, and the other scraping against her jugular.

"Would you let me?" Catra asks, and Adora knows exactly what she's asking.

"No." She answers, and Catra laughs.

"Yes." Adora whispers, and the truth lodges in her ribcage, and it sticks there.

"Alright." Catra's smile is sharp, so sharp, almost as sharp as the claws cutting through Adora's throat.

* * *

Adora swings the sword down, and she almost doesn't flinch at the sound Catra lets out, a squeak of breath rushing out, almost loud enough to mask the sound of a blade cutting down.

Adora stares ahead, stubbornly ignoring the wetness on her cheeks, the way her heart convulses in her chest.

She only cries when the simulation ends, shoulders shaking and heaving, face buried in her hands. "I didn't mean it!" She whimpers. _ Not Catra, never Catra. _

"That is the problem." Light Hope tells her, and Adora wonders why she sounds so cold, so impossibly detached.

* * *

Adora learns how to stop flinching, and Light Hope learns how to make the simulations harder.

"Remember when we were little and Shadow Weaver told us to stop holding hands during training. You turned bright pink, but you held my hand tighter. I loved you then, and I love you now."

"Come on, Adora, just end it. Aren't you tired of fighting with me?"

"Adora, please. Please stop, don't do this, I'm sorry, I love you, _ I love you _-"

* * *

Catra holds her hand out, gripping the hand Adora has wrapped around her sword. "You're not going to hurt me, Adora, we made a promise. Remember?" She asks, voice soft, eyes softer. There's no harshness, no sharp edges.

"I remember." Adora murmurs quietly, and she half-wishes her hand would shake.

It doesn't.

Sometimes Adora kills Catra because it's a simulation, and sometimes she doesn't because it's a simulation and this is the only way Adora can feel Catra's hands on her in a way that is not biting and angry.

* * *

Adora kills Catra over and over and over.

Adora loves Catra, over and over and over.

In the end it's like this: Adora learns Catra inside and out, and doesn't learn anything new. She is still Catra, scarred and wanting, soft and angry. She is the same in Adora's heart.

Adora kills Catra over and over, but something new crawls back every time.

Adora doesn't know what to do with these extra parts.


End file.
